Leftovers
Written for Morsmordre's Shipping Week
Prompt: banana
Pairing: Credence/Nagini
Sometimes working for the circus meant living on scraps, finding whatever you could when the audience went home. It was a form of punishment, Skender said, when their performance was less than satisfactory. It was also a form of neglect, because the ringmaster sometimes forget to feed his creatures.
It was during one of these long, hungry nights that Credence found Nagini, sitting beside the Zouwu's cage with a handful of food, offering it to the hungry beast. From the looks of things, she had picked up a small box of peanuts and a piece of bread. Dampish bread, that had been splashed with lemonade.
Credence cringed at the sight, remembering his mother's disgusting choice of foodstuffs. It seemed that no matter where he went there was always dampish bread somewhere close by.
"Nagini?" he said softly, moving through the shadows towards the cage. The Maledictus and the Zouwu paused, looking up at him. "Didn't you get any food tonight?"
Nagini was quiet, her gaze drifting towards the ground. It was enough of an answer, and when Credence looked back at the Zouwu she was eating the food out of Nagini's hand.
"Do you want me to help?" Credence asked, taking a seat beside her. He knew that Nagini would eat her own shoes if she was desperate enough, but he didn't want it to come to that.
Her expression brightened. "There might be something left in the stands," she said, brushing the crumbs off her dress. "I just wanted to make sure she got fed first."
They left the Zouwu and returned to the main tent, searching the spaces between the wooden benches for discarded popcorn boxes, soda bottles and cotton candy.
After several minutes of searching, Nagini managed to find a squished banana peel and an apple core underneath one of the benches. She brushed the ants off the apple core and returned to Credence, who was in the process of removing a soggy hotdog bun from a paper carton.
"I'm used to it," Credence told her. "We had a lot of dampish bread back home."
"You aren't going to eat that?" Nagini asked, motioning towards the half eaten hotdog.
Credence hesitated before speaking. "I can't," he muttered, lowering his head and looking at the floor. One hand crept across his waist, massaging his abdomen. "I think it's the Obscurus. It... it upsets my stomach sometimes."
Nagini gave him a look of deepest sympathy. She scanned the tent, looking for anything that might be edible, and spied a forgotten tub of popcorn in the corner.
"Will this do?" she asked, retrieving the tub and placing it beside him.
The Obscurial finished eating the hotdog bun, then turned to her offering. He tasted some of it. It wasn't too buttery or salty, and it wasn't soggy like the bread.
"Thank you," he said, smiling a little at her kindness.
Nagini settled beside him on the bench, nibbling the apple core and leftover hotdog. It wasn't much, but at least they had each other. Which was better than being alone in a place like this.